gentrification

I’ve just returned from a work trip to Istanbul. I was there two years ago with Mark Thomas working on his book exposing the crimes of Coca Cola.

Whilst I was there I visited Sulukule, the oldest gypsy community in the world and a community facing forced eviction and demolition, the story appeared as eyewitness in the Guardian newspaper.

The Roma residents, famous for their traditional gypsy music, were fighting the ‘gentrification’ of their historic community, which was only to leave a handful of houses as museum artifacts and re-house the gypsies in anonymous blocks some way outside the city.

The community is now dispersed, destroyed and impoverished and as Istanbul celebrates its European Capital of Culture status it represents exactly the opposite in my opinion.